Four ex-Man Group executives have set up as Revere Capital Advisors with the intention of helping emerging hedge fund managers develop their businesses. Revere will take equity stakes in return for supporting sales, marketing and distribution and will also offer corporate, administrative, compliance and IT services to hedge funds.

The four founders are Daniel Barnett, Harvey McGrath, Michael Stone and John Kinder.

The first funds that the new company will work for include San Francisco-based commodity hedge fund Broadmark Asset Management and Dickson Capital Management, a fundamental long/short firm.

Mr McGrath, the former chairman of Man Group who takes over as chairman of UK-listed Prudential in January 2009, told the Financial Times that the current turmoil in the industry made it “an interesting time” to be launching. “Clearly the shape of the industry will change but I have no doubt that the talent out there will find new ways to find alpha. I don’t think this is the end of the hedge fund industry.”

Mr Barnett said that Revere aimed to purchase an initial small stake in promising hedge fund managers with less than $50 million under management and take an option to increase it once they hit a fixed level of assets – in return for helping them raise money. He is aiming to have holdings in six to seven managers within 18 months.

Revere has offices in San Francisco, New York and London.